Contrary to a prevailing myth, sociopaths are really no smarter than the average individual”¦probably dumber. Sure, a good one can dupe you, but as I’ve written elswhere, this is no great shakes, as most of us can dupe each other if that’s our goal.
That’s because we enter relationships risking trust and faith in each other, which makes the exploitation of our trust and faith really easy. It takes no genius or particularly smart, crafty person to exploit this trust and faith. It’s as easy to do as it’s wrong.
And so, most sociopaths aren’t really that clever, or ingeniously bright. Most make messes not only of others’ lives, but their own too. Many end up in jail, and those who don’t are often finding trouble in other areas, exercising poor judgement all over the map, squandering friendships, family, and all sorts of meaningful opportunities.
By most standards of a successful life, sociopaths live lives of abject failure, accomplishing little more, at the end of the day, than having produced plenty of havoc and pain. None of this indicates that, as a group, sociopaths are smart.
Sometimes the media sensationalizes the sociopath as the dark, brilliantly predatory monster, especially in classic cases of psychopaths like Ted Bundy. But Ted Bundy wasn’t so smart. In the end, he was nothing but a vicious, sadistic murderer who managed to lure young, naïve girls sufficiently into his proximity to then viciously murder them.
How much of an accomplishment was this? To be able to lure naïve girls near enough to his car to then kidnap and kill them? Otherwise, OJ Simpson style, Bundy was ambushing dormitories at night and butchering innocent, sleeping college kids. Not exactly a genius, or courageous guy, at work here. Just a perverse, murderously violent, cowardly man.
Sure, Bundy was reputedly charming and articulate (video of him bears this out). But this didn’t make him “smart.” He was, clearly, adept at “masking” himself. But again, effective maskers aren’t smart; they’re just good maskers. And nonsociopaths routinely are good maskers.
Good masking, good self-disguising is a type of social skill, and not the purview of sociopaths exclusively. Also, many sociopaths are terrible maskers, just as many nonsociopaths are.
My point is that the “mask” is not an indication of “smartness.” It’s merely the case that some sociopaths, and some nonsociopaths, can mask aspects of themselves and their agendas effectively; but bear in mind, just as many do this very poorly.
In the end, sociopaths, as a group, have a poor track record of living effective lives. Rather, they live disruptive, unsatisfying lives”¦fraught with pathological attitudes and empathic deficits that bring misery to others and, correspondingly, much trouble and, at best, empty satisfaction, to themselves.
Sociopaths simply are not successful people. They may (or may not) skate along under the radar for some stretch of time, but this is not a “game” that smart people play, and that smart people get off on.
Only dumb people play this game. Only really dumb people live this way. Only really really dumb people derive satisfaction, for however long they can swing it, from pulling the wool over others’ eyes.
It’s just no great shakes to do this, and it doesn’t make you smart.
Aerin
New Winter,
I know what you mean. Almost like a facebook for victims/surviviors of psychopaths. Very interesting…anything that brings more awareness to this disorder is a very good thing, and a step in the right direction!!!
Not to detract from Love Fraud tho. LF is awesome and holds a special place in all of our hearts!!
new winter
Okay I’ll give it a shot, just to see if it’s a good idea, and if you guys/gals like it, you know of course that you’ll be the ones in charge 🙂 I’ll be back later with something to test!
And Claudia, thanks so much for the compliment, it made my day!
FightAnotherDay
Okay. Just dropped off junior.
What IF Jerkface was really on medication and not working as I surmised?
I was suspicious because LAST Friday Jr. said he was with the GF and her mom, and daddy was at home. As well as the fact that he waited till 5 am to tell me this morning.
Ox Drover
Well, if Jerkface is on MEDICATION, does he have something that is contagious to junior? The whole thing sounds fishy to me about the now wanting To “ride” in the car, and can’t drive? TOO MUCH INFORMATION to explain why he wants to send GF to pick up the kiddo. hummmmm? do I smell a rat here somewhere?
educatedprofessional
Tonight’s dateline is great – called mystery in the deep blue sea
moveingon
Classic dumb Spath ..who got caught!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1365521/Simon-Reid-caught-lovers–camera.html
Ox Drover
WOW!!!!! What a scum bag!!! I’m surprised though that the law considered what he did “fraud”—as generally UK laws are more “kind” than US laws. Glad for the women though! More of them OUGHT to go to prison!
hens
Wow what a day – tsunami – earthquake – and 59 houses burned in my county today because of grass fire’s and high wind’s – the smell of smoke is everywhere..come on SuperMoon I am ready for ya….!
skylar
Yeah, it’s a powerful moon. Let’s make the most of it – and have a moon dance.
Ox Drover
Dear Hens, I hope the winds don’t blow the fire in the direction of your beautiful home and landscape! I watched the news and the videos of the tsunami and the ground cracked, they said 150 miles long and 50 miles wide just cracked open….they also were talking about the New Madrid fault near me that went off 200 years ago this year and how horrible it was and that if it did that bad again it would be 250,000 dead—it was near Memphis and they said it rang church bells in Boston, but there were only 1,000 white people living in this area then and not really a lot of damage except the chimneys fell In Mo, Tn and AR.
But the entire thing shows you that “ya can’t fool mother nature” for sure—no matter how powerful people think we are, Mother Nature can trump our aces! Sounds like they got hit about as hard as Haiti but at least they had prepared and their “earthquake proof” buildings for the most part at least held up. Nothing can stop a tsunami though. At least they will be able to rebuild again—they’ve had enough experience rebuilding from scratch and they’ve got the resources which Haiti doesn’t have.
I am just glad that I have a roof over my head and the ground hasn’t shaken this week—I did get some cracks in the walls in the 4.7 shaker we had a couple of weeks ago. Nothing bad though. I can live with it and a little bit of plaster and paint will fix it.
Well, I’m going to bed guys! G’nite!